FOAFTALE NEWS What Can We Learn from Popular Collections Of
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FOAFTALE NEWS NEWSLETTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR CONTEMPORARY LEGEND RESEARCH No. 69 December 2007 __________________________________________________________________________________ now on members will be able to share discussions and information, and access FTN from this site. Rather than IN THIS ISSUE sending FTN out via E-mail or as printed copy, as we have done in the past, members will be alerted when an issue A New Home For FTN of the newsletter is available, so they may read it online or print it out as they wish. Once the system is up and What Can We Learn From Popular Collections running, back numbers will also be available for browsing or printing. Of Urban Legends? Sandy Hobbs And Seonaid Anderson Hearty thanks to Eda for bringing FTN into the 21st century! "Urban Legend/Myth" In Crosswords And Comics Jan H. Brunvand REMINDER Now would be a good time to check whether your Two Legends From Estonia membership is up-to-date for 2008. To renew your Eda Kalmre membership, send a cheque made out to "ISCLR" for US$30.00 or UK£20 to Mikel J. Koven, Arts, "The Man In The Middle." Humanities and Social Science, University of Further Update Worcester, Henwick Grove, Worcester WR2 6AJ, UK. Bonnie Taylor-Blake Events Awards What Can We Learn From Popular Collections Of Urban Legends? Publication News Sandy Hobbs and Seonaid Anderson Miscellany Although scholars of contemporary legend naturally lay PLEASE NOTE: particular stress on stories which are orally transmitted, there will be no print version of this issue. they have shown themselves willing to take account of material transmitted via other media such a newspapers, films and the internet. There is one type of transmission A New Home for FTN which seems to have received little or no systematic attention, namely printed collections aimed at a popular audience. Even the most cursory glance shows that there Gillian Bennett (Editor) are many such volumes available. Since the apparently unscholarly nature of such volumes makes it unlikely that This will be the last issue of FTN E-mailed to you from the they will be reviewed in scholarly journals, it seemed UK. When Mikel Koven, FTN's previous editor, left the worthwhile attempting a systematic consideration of some Department of Film and Theatre Studies at Aberystwyth of these popular collections. we lost the web address we had been using for some The modern era of research on contemporary legends time, and Eda Kalmre, generously offered her services may be seen as starting with the appearance of and those of the Folklore Department at the Estonian Brunvand’s Vanishing Hitchhiker in 1981. Since then, Literary Museum, to fill the gap. Our new address will be there have been many books containing such legends. http://www.folklore.ee/FOAFtale. Contributions should be Whereas Brunvand’s many collections have the dual aims sent to <[email protected]> of entertaining the reader and increasing our Eda has also offered to set up a user group for ISCLR understanding, many of these other volumes appear members (its address will be <[email protected]>). From primarily aimed at entertainment. This paper considers the question of how scholars should treat these popular sentence statements as separate entities. However, this collections. may have the disadvantage of exaggerating the apparent An initial look at some of these volumes indicated that coverage of a particular volume. For example, Craughwell they clearly varied in a number of potentially significant (2005, p 244) has as adjacent “Short Takes”: ways. Some had characteristics which might be considered as partly scholarly in nature, in that they Burt Reynolds is Tom Selleck’s father. encouraged a critical approach to the texts. This might Clark Gable is Tom Selleck’s father. include commentary on the legend texts, discussion of variants texts and possible origins, and giving references. Note that even by generously counting these and Even an index might be regarded as a feature of similar examples as separate legends, we could not justify scholarship as it implies a systematic reading of the book. the book title’s claim to include 666 entries. Our count Scholarship and entertainment may exist side by side, but reached only 636. Such exaggeration is not unique. The without any of the scholarly attributes a book will simply book by Genge presented us with particular problems as it be seeking to evoke responses such as amusement or is long and lacks an index. It is not always clear when a horror. story is presented as a “legend” and when as a “true” We decided to look for books, published in English in incident which is comparable with a legend. For this the United States and United Kingdom since the 1990s, reason, we are particularly cautious about giving an which appeared to be aimed primarily at a popular estimate of the number of legends in this book. audience and to be concerned with contemporary legends These books vary considerably in the extent of in general. We excluded books by authors who are part of scholarship displayed. Only two contained an index and the scholarly community. Where authors have published three have references to other works. At one extreme, more than one book we examined the content. The two Reeve (2002), apart from a single page introduction and a books by Holt and Mooney (1999, 2004) have virtually no few simple illustrations, consists only of legend texts. By overlap in content, so both have been considered. contrast, Harding discusses conceptual and theoretical However, in other cases there was considerable overlap, issues (though not necessarily very well) and has (e.g. Brown and Flynn, 2000 and 2003, Craughwell, 2000 references (but no index). and 2005, and Healey and Glanvill, 1992, 1993, 1994 and The concept of “urban legend” and “urban myth” is 1996). For these authors, we selected only the latest treated very broadly by some writers. The Tom Selleck volume. Dale (2005) was excluded as it is simply a slightly examples we have quoted might be considered cases of updated version of his 1978 book. We excluded Roeper using “urban legend” to mean simply a statement that is (2002) because it is about Hollywood stories and not not true. This is not a very helpful usage, particularly if no contemporary legends in general. Likewise Williams attempt is made to indicate that the statement is in (2001) has been excluded since it is primarily a Christian circulation and believed. polemic. However, Hennigan (2002) is included because, As a first step in exploring these variations we set out despite the title, Scottish Urban Myths, the contents show to find how frequently the legends appearing in very little that is distinctively Scottish and most of the Brunvand’s Vanishing Hitchhiker appeared in each of the stories included occur in other collections. Since some books sampled. Brunvand gives titles to 25 legends in collections of urban legends are ephemeral, we doubt that book. We scanned all 10 books seeking versions of whether our sample is in any sense definitive, but since these legends. Initially we erred on the side of these volumes show a number of contrasting features, the overinclusiveness, then took a more critical second look. sample is probably broad enough to indicate some of the The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs occurred most main features of this type of book. frequently (7 times) while Hot Dog (also known as the The ten works subjected to systematic review are Microwaved Pet), Kentucky Fried Rat, The Runaway identified in the reference list by an asterisk. We have Grandmother, and The Vanishing Hitchhiker itself all noted the number of legend texts included, whether the appeared in six of the collections. In contrast, Fart in the work contains an index and references to other Dark and The Ghost Airliner occurred in only one publications, and the extent of any commentary on the collection and The Cut-Out Pullman, The Devil in the texts. Whether, when transmitted orally, contemporary Dancehall and The Economical Car did not appear in any. legends are always “told as true” is in doubt. What cannot How may this variation be interpreted? One be doubted about these volumes is that virtually from the explanation might be that the compilers of these popular titles onwards, the stories are told as “not true”. The books may have a preference for particular kinds of story. contents are referred to as “legends” or “myths”, or Another possibility is that the frequency of their sometimes both. Although some scholars prefer the occurrence is an indication of how prominent the legend is phrase “Contemporary Legend”, Brunvand has currently. consistently employed the term “Urban Legend” and the To explore this further, we decided to check the status popularity of his work seems to have established it as the of these 25 legends on the well known urban legend preferred description. All of these books have “urban” in website, www.Snopes.com. Since entries in Snopes are the title and seven have “legend”. However, “myth’ is often updated, we checked for when the page devoted to almost as common, occurring in five titles. a particular legend was most recently updated. The number of stories offered by these volumes varies If we divide the Brunvand legends into those appearing from as few as 28 to over 600. However, it should be in four or more collections and those appearing in three or noted that counting texts is not always straightforward. less, they amount to 13 and 12 respectively. Of the 13 Some books contain relatively full versions of stories most commonly cited, 9 had been updated in Snopes.com supplemented with short statements, usually only a since 2001.